The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business

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Even though I worked most of my life in task-based societies, the relationship between coworkers was newer than straightforward and most companies I worked with emphasized community as one of their most important values. According to the insights of the leading scale, and the stories shared in the book, not everyone thinks this way. Has your boss ever yelled at you directly for having made an error, "David, this work in unacceptable, why did you prepare the report in this way?"

When working with people from higher-context cultures, Meyer suggests to listen actively, listening out for what’s is meant instead of what’s being said. And if you find yourself working with people from lower-context cultures, Meyer recommends being as transparent, clear, and specific as possible. Repeating what our partner said word-by-word is maybe not the most productive idea when it comes to decoding the messages of someone from a high-context culture. Avoid confrontations – On the other hand, cultures such as Japan and Indonesia have cultures that believe that open confrontation can disrupt the harmonious setting of a group. They also believe that the idea a person puts forth is not separated from the person, therefore disagreeing with the idea is considered equal to disagreeing with the person. However, ask a Scandinavian what “a power distance” is, and he’ll probably laugh the subject right off the table: for the Danish, the Norwegian, and the Swedish “the best boss is a facilitator among equals” and “organizational structures are flat.” You can be on time if you live in Switzerland, Germany, and Japan – countries which respect the idea of linear time and believe in sequential steps, promptness and strict adherence to deadlines.

8. Persuading: Principles first vs. applications first

In the US, France, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia or China, the decision-making process is top-down. The boss is expected to make a decision, and the team will follow. Accountability is rarely discussed as this is simply passed on to the leader above. A phrase that you will often hear in Vietnam is “It's up to you.” You are the boss, you have to make the decision, don’t ask me. Ms. Meyer is a professor at INSEAD, one of the world’s leading international business schools. Her research is focused on determining how the world’s most successful global leaders navigate the complexities of cultural differences. Her framework allows executives around the world to pinpoint their leadership preferences, and compare their methods to the management styles of other cultures. This helps them navigate complex leadership issues, negotiate successfully across cultures, and solve issues that require years of experience. As a result, this book is one of my most prescribed books for leaders facing cultural challenges. Meyer divides disagreement styles across two extremes: “confrontational,” which we’ll call open disagreement, and “avoids confrontation,” which we’ll call disagreement-avoidant. Additionally, disagreements are also affected by whether emotions in the culture are expressive or inexpressive in style. For example, while both France and Germany have a confrontational culture, they differ in styles where Germans are mostly objective and fairly inexpressive, preferring to keep emotions out of the way of disagreements. France on the other hand, though confrontational by culture is expressive by style. In 2017, Meyer was selected as one of the most influential thinkers worldwide by both “Thinkers50” and “HR Magazine.” Book Summary

Leadership Journeys [132] – Josh Staph –“A good leader knows what questions to ask and what questions need to be answered” If you can remember your first business trip to Vietnam or Korea than there is a good chance that it included karaoke. You may have even spent more time as a whole singing, drinking, and dining than conducting the actual business meetings you were there for. Vietnam and Korea are like most Asian countries, relationship-based cultures. On the other hand, most western cultures are task-based cultures. At the heart of Erin Meyer’s exceptional book, “The Culture Map,” is an “eight-scale model” which should help managers and leaders of culturally diverse teams improve their effectiveness by offering them a platform to analyze the positioning of one culture relative to another and, thus, correctly decode the meaning of some actions and gestures. According to Meyer, in cognitive cultures, trust develops based on behavior—like whether someone’s good at their job. Business relationships remain professional and don’t bleed into personal connections. In contrast, the cornerstone of business relationships in personal cultures is affective or personal trust—the trust that people of all cultures feel towards their family and friends. So while people build relationships slowly, this connection lasts across jobs. (Shortform note: Researchers suggest that trust has three parts: competency, honesty (or integrity), and benevolence, the idea that someone is acting in your best interests. It’s likely that although both types of cultures value honesty, cognitive cultures place a higher value on competence and personal cultures place a higher value on benevolence.) Companies in egalitarian cultures tend to have a flat organizational structure. People speak as easily to the CEO as they do to the lowest-ranking employee. (Shortform note: Another feature of egalitarian cultures that Meyer doesn’t mention is that its members are more likely to act on their own and ask for forgiveness instead of permission.)The eight scales in question – and the two extremes between which Erin Meyer scatters many of the world’s countries – are the following:

This is a topic for whole PhD dissertations! Important is to remember the cultural emphasis on interconnectedness & interdependency – Asians tend to think from macro to micro. In peach cultures, people are warm and welcoming even without any previous relationship. They are smiling and offer compliments upon starting the relationship. Cultural Tip: "Trust is built in different ways in each culture but it remains vital for all partnerships"

PDF Summary Chapter 6: Building Trust Across Cultures

Communication is at the crux of all forms of interaction. Understanding how communication differs in cultures, Meyer charts out the communication scale that can help understand values, temperaments, and sense of humour. The communication scale has low-context and high-context cultures. The differences between the two can be attributed to the history of the country. Meyer recommends several generally applicable strategies to use when working with cultures that perceive time differently. First, adjust your schedule to the other culture, especially when you’re the visitor. This may take time to get right, so experiment until you find what works. Secondly, If you’re leading a team, set clear expectations about scheduling among team members to reduce frustration. Finally, withhold judgment. Scheduling is particularly vulnerable to cultural superiority, as both types think the other’s way is wrong. But the only correct way to perceive time is the one that works for you. (Shortform note: These strategies are all applicable more broadly to dealing with other cultures. Meyer may pinpoint them here partly because adjusting your schedule is easier than adjusting other ways you do business or because people are particularly judgmental about scheduling.) What to Keep in Mind to Work Effectively Across Cultures Namely, the US is a low-context country (in fact, the lowest one), and the UK is a middle-context nation. In other words, Americans say everything they mean, and the British leave some of it to the context. According to Nisbett, dialectical thinkers are more accepting of contradiction as a fact of life, so they often try to find the middle ground. Sounds great, right? But an acceptance of contradiction could be problematic in business. For example, you might have to convince dialectical thinkers that a problem needs solving at all. Consensual scale – Cultures with consensual deciding scales involve everyone in the decision-making process. The final decision is made after all concerned reach a consensus. This type of deciding scale helps in making decisions faster. Countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands are examples of consensual deciding scales.